The Celebrity Archaeology Podcast

PODCAST EPISODE 26 - Rex Harrison

Sir Reginald Carey Harrison, known
as Rex Harrison, was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison
began his career on the stage in 1924. He served in the Royal Air
Force during World War II, reaching the rank of flight lieutenant.
He won his first Tony Award for his performance as Henry VIII in
the play Anne of the Thousand Days in 1949. He won his second Tony
for the role of Professor Henry Higgins in the stage production of
My Fair Lady in 1957. He reprised the role for the 1964 film
version, which earned him both a Golden Globe Award and Academy
Award for Best Actor. In addition to
his stage career, Harrison also appeared in numerous films,
including Anna and the King of Siam (1946), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
(1947), Cleopatra (1963), and played the title role of the English
doctor who talks to animals, Doctor Dolittle (1967). In July 1989,
Harrison was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. In 1975, Harrison
released his first autobiography. His second, A Damned Serious
Business: My Life in Comedy, was published posthumously in 1991.
Harrison was married six times and had two sons: Noel and Carey
Harrison. He continued working in stage productions until shortly
before his death from pancreatic cancer in June 1990 at the age of
82. Early years Harrison was born at Derry House in Huyton,
Lancashire, the son of Edith Mary and William Reginald
Harrison, a cotton broker. He was educated at Liverpool
College. After a bout of childhood measles, Harrison lost most
of the sight in his left eye, which on one occasion caused some
on-stage difficulty. He first appeared on the stage in 1924 in
Liverpool. Harrison's acting career was interrupted during World
War II while serving in the Royal Air Force, reaching the rank of
Flight Lieutenant. He acted in various stage productions until
11 May 1990. He acted in the West End of London when he was young,
appearing in the Terence Rattigan play French Without Tears, which
proved to be his breakthrough role. He alternated appearances in
London and New York in such plays as Bell, Book and Candle (1950),
Venus Observed, The Cocktail Party, The Kingfisher and The Love of
Four Colonels, which he also directed. He won his first Tony
Award for his appearance at the Shubert Theatre as Henry VIII in
Maxwell Anderson's play Anne of a Thousand Days and international
superstardom (and a second Tony) for his portrayal of Henry Higgins
in the musical My Fair Lady, where he appeared opposite Julie
Andrews. Harrison was not by any objective standards a singer (his
talking on pitch style he used in My Fair Lady would
be adopted by many other classically trained actors with limited
vocal ranges); the music was usually written to allow for long
periods of recitative, or "speaking to the music". Nevertheless,
"Talk to the Animals", which Harrison performed in Doctor
Dolittle, won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1967.
Later appearances included Pirandello's Henry IV, a 1984 appearance
at the Haymarket Theatre with Claudette Colbert in Frederick
Lonsdale's Aren't We All?, and one on Broadway at the Brooks
Atkinson Theatre presented by Douglas Urbanski, at the Haymarket in
J. M. Barrie's The Admirable Crichton with Edward Fox. He returned
as Henry Higgins in the revival of My Fair Lady directed by Patrick
Garland in 1981, cementing his association with the plays of George
Bernard Shaw, which included a Tony nominated performance as
Shotover in Heartbreak House, Julius Caesar in Caesar and
Cleopatra, and General Burgoyne in a Los Angeles production of The
Devil's Disciple. Personal life Harrison was married six times. In
1942, he divorced his first wife, Colette Thomas, and married
actress Lilli Palmer the next year; they later appeared together in
numerous plays and films, including The Four Poster. In 1947, while
married to Palmer, Harrison began an affair with actress Carole
Landis. Landis committed suicide in 1948 after spending the evening
with Harrison. Harrison's involvement in the scandal by waiting
several hours before calling a doctor and police briefly damaged
his career and his contract with Fox was ended by mutual consent.
Harrison and Palmer divorced in 1957. In 1957, Harrison married the
actress Kay Kendall. Kendall died of myeloid leukaemia in 1959.
Terence Rattigan's 1973 play In Praise of Love was written about
the end of this marriage, and Harrison appeared in the New York
production playing the character based on himself. Rattigan was
said to be "intensely disappointed and frustrated" by Harrison's
performance, as "Harrison refused to play the outwardly boorish
parts of the character and instead played him as charming
throughout, signalling to the audience from the start that he knew
the truth about [the] illness." Critics however were
quite pleased with the performance and although it did not have a
long run, it was yet another of Harrison's well-plotted
naturalistic performances. He was subsequently married to
Welsh-born actress Rachel Roberts from 1962 to 1971. In 1980,
despite his having married twice since their divorce, Roberts made
a final attempt to win Harrison back, which proved to be futile;
she committed suicide that same year. Harrison then married
Elizabeth Rees-Williams, divorcing in 1975, and finally in 1978,
Mercia Tinker, who would become his sixth and final wife.
Harrison's eldest son Noel Harrison became an olympic skier, singer
and occasional actor; he toured in several productions including My
Fair Lady in his father's award-winning role. Noel died suddenly of
a heart attack on 19 October 2013 at age 79. Rex's younger son
Carey Harrison is a playwright and social activist. Having retired
from films after A Time to Die, Harrison continued to act on
Broadway and the West End until the end of his life, despite
suffering from glaucoma, painful teeth, and a failing memory. He
was nominated for a third Tony Award in 1984 for his performance as
Captain Shotover in the revival of George Bernard Shaw's
Heartbreak House. He followed with two
successful pairings with Claudette Colbert, The Kingfisher
in 1985 and Aren't We All? in 1986. In 1989, he appeared
with Edward Fox in The Admirable Crichton in London. In
1989/90, he appeared on Broadway in The Circle by W.
Somerset Maugham, opposite Glynis Johns, Stewart Granger, and Roma
Downey.[ The production opened at Duke University for a
three-week run followed by performances in Baltimore and Boston
before opening 14 November 1989 on Broadway. Harrison died of
pancreatic cancer at his home in Manhattan on 2 June 1990 at the
age of 82. He had only been diagnosed with the disease a short time
before. The stage production in which he was appearing at the time,
The Circle, came to an end upon his death.[ He
was cremated and some of his ashes were scattered in Portofino and
the rest were scattered at his second wife Lilli Palmer's grave at
Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, in the
Commemoration section, Map 1, Lot 4066, Space 2. Links: The Book:
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